The 2024/2025 Design Researchers in Residence set out to  respond to the theme of ‘Artificial’, questioning the limits of human-centred design in a more-than-human climate crisis. 

Situated in the the Design Museum’s Future Observatory, a research programme concerned with matters related to the green transition in partnership with the UKRI’s Arts & Humanities Research Council (AHRC), this year-long residency was particularly focussed on understanding the relationship between that which is ‘natural’ and that which is ‘human’.

Hot Mess looked to investigate the complexity and contradiction that is inextricable from the process of policy and decision-making in England. Using heat pumps as a case study, this project sought to map out the mechanisms of how policy is currently made, the current challenges in national and local planning policy and speculate an alternative way to make decisions that looks to learn from how nature deals with complexity and contradiction.


The process and outcomes of this research are on display at a free public exhbition at the Design Museum from 16th June to 21st September 2025.